Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking to support businesses to provide unconscious bias training to all employees.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
The Government recognises that it is important to tackle bias in workplaces and in wider society. The Government Equalities Office commissioned a review of the evidence on unconscious bias and diversity training. The review showed that there is currently no evidence that this training changes behaviour in the long term or improves workplace equality. In 2018 GEO published evidence-based advice for employers on actions they could take to reduce bias within their organisations. The issue has not recently been discussed with the Devolved Administrations.
An internal review decided in January 2020 that unconscious bias training would be phased out in Civil Service departments. The Civil Service will instead integrate principles for inclusion and diversity into mainstream core training and leadership modules in a manner which facilitates positive behaviour change.
The government is making progress in understanding what works to support diversity and inclusion in the workplace. The Commission for Race and Ethnic Disparities demonstrates this government’s commitment to level up opportunity for everyone, to better understand disparities and their causes, and will be making evidence-based recommendations to address them. Employment and Enterprise is one of the four priority areas for the Commission. Further, our recent work with the large insurer, Zurich, demonstrated a 16% rise in female applicants for all jobs when advertising all jobs available as flexible. This is one of many trials in our Gender and Behavioural Insights Programme that is at the heart of our commitment to build workplace equality through insights and evidence.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities is taking to ensure people in (a) the UK and (b) Dudley North constituency can engage with the work of the Commission.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
Since the Prime Minister established the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities in July of this year, the Commission has been busy meeting with key delivery partners and agencies from around the UK in each of its priority areas of health, education, employment and enterprise and crime and policing. They have also held evidence gathering sessions with a range of external stakeholders and influencers, and will shortly be setting out a public call for evidence; details of which will be announced in due course.
Its work will be crucial in informing and improving the national conversation on race and ethnicity, and demonstrates this government’s mission to level up opportunity for everyone whatever their background.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support his Department is providing to help (a) women business owners grow their business online and (b) women wanting to start their own business in Feltham and Heston constituency.
Answered by Paul Scully
Support is available to all business owners wishing to grow their businesses online through the Growth Hub network and programmes such as Be the Business. Advice and support on adapting to and recovering from the disruption caused by Coronavirus, including through digital means, is also available through the Recovery Advice for Business Scheme, hosted on the Enterprise Nation website and supported by BEIS.
The Start-Up Loans Company provides funding and intensive support to new entrepreneurs. Since 2012 40% of Start Up Loans have gone to women, worth well over £210m. Of these, 12 start-up loans valued at £160,150 have been provided to businesses in Feltham.
More widely, there are now 1.2 million female-led small and medium-sized businesses in the UK. This accounts for 22% of SMEs in the UK. Innovate UK have launched the Women in Innovation Awards to find and support the UK’s most promising female innovators to develop their ideas and scale up their businesses. The 2020/21 Awards competition is currently open and closes on 14th October 2020. 10 female innovators will be awarded with a cash boost of £50,000 each, as well as receive vital business support to help them develop and grow their business, including coaching and mentoring.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 July to Question 72907 and the Answer of 17 July 2020 to Question 72907 on Cybercrime and Digital Technology, how many individuals have completed digital skills courses through the (a) degree conversion course programmes in data science and artificial intelligence, (b) Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund covering the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership areas, (c) Digital Skills Innovation Fund and The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund, (d) Six Local Digital Skills Partnerships, (e) The Grenfell Digital Skills programme and (f) Code4000’s Coding in Prisons programme in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
(a) degree conversion course programmes in data science and artificial intelligence
No individuals have completed courses in the degree conversion course programme in data science and artificial intelligence announced on 10 June 2020. The first students in the programme will start in Autumn this year.
(b) Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund covering the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership areas
The Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund is a £3 million fund aiming to boost digital skills training through short, responsive courses that will help employers recruit to hard to fill digital roles. The fund is estimated to train 741 individuals, with 158 courses completed to date, including:
50 course completions within cloud engineering
48 course completions in software development
24 courses completions in digital marketing
19 course competitions in DevOps
16 course completion in Linux engineering
(c) Digital Skills Innovation Fund and The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund
The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund was a £400,000 fund supporting older and disabled people, particularly those in rural areas. The 3 pilot projects impacted a total of 1672 individuals, including:
1094 digital learners in the Living Smart Homes project in West Essex
55 patients in end of life care, their carers and patient care volunteers in the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust
523 users of the Down’s Syndrome Association’s HealthSwap app
The Digital Skills Innovation Fund is a £1.1m fund supporting underrepresented groups or people from disadvantaged backgrounds get into digital roles or further training. 733 individuals have completed or nearly completed training from four pilot projects, including:
The Heart of South West pilot helped 194 individuals over 12 months retrain and prepare for or advance a career in digital, primarily supporting women in small businesses. It focused on the 20% most deprived wards in the region.
Lancashire’s programme has 105 participants, who have completed or near completed women in business workshops, digital marketing, and IT Ready training. The programme is supporting unemployed residents from disadvantaged wards.
Sheffield City Region and Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire’s pilot supported women and autistic people gain demand-led digital skills. The pilot had 246 participants.
West of England’s programme supported women, particularly those living in deprived neighbourhoods, acquire skills for digital roles. The programme had 188 participants, with 28 completing a formal, recognised training course, 24 receiving advice and guidance on accessing digital jobs, and 166 completing ‘taster’ or other introductory sessions.
(d) Six Local Digital Skills Partnerships
DCMS provides £75,000 per year to fund a Regional Coordinator, rather than training provision, in each Local Digital Skills Partnership. Regional Coordinators play an important role within the Local Enterprise Partnership/ Combined Authority to bring together cross-sector partners to co-design and deliver provision aligned to local needs, tackling local digital skills gaps, advancing digital inclusion, while contributing to regional economic growth.
(e) The Grenfell Digital Skills programme
The Grenfell Digital Skills Programme went live in November 2019. So far 292 sessions from 10 courses have been attended by 75 individuals.
(f) Code4000’s Coding in Prisons programme
DCMS provided a £100,000 grant to Code4000 to support their coding workshops in prisons. The funding supported 90 learners as follows:
65 prisoners in the workshop at HMP Humber
25 prisoners in the workshop at HMP Holme House
5 of these prisoners were also supported on release at the pilot support hub in Sheffield
Asked by: Katherine Fletcher (Conservative - South Ribble)
Question
What steps the Government is taking to support female entrepreneurs after the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
For those already self-employed, the Department for Work and Pensions has temporarily removed the minimum income floor, and HM Treasury has introduced the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme.
For those wanting to start a new business, the DWP New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) programme offers dedicated, specialised support to those entering into, or wanting to grow their business.
Since 2011, the NEA has supported over 54,000 women to set-up a new business.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding his Department has allocated to (a) digital skills and (b) cyber skills; and to whom that funding has been allocated.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Since 2018 the government, through DCMS, has provided £9.1 million of funding for digital skills. This has been allocated to:
Degree conversion course programmes (£3.3 million) in data science and artificial intelligence with the office for students. Further funding is due in subsequent years for up to 1,000 scholarships to open up opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds.
The Fast Track Digital Workforce Fund (£3 million), a digital skills pilot programme covering the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas to boost digital skills training (including cyber security, software development and digital marketing).
The Digital Skills Innovation Fund (£1.1 million) for LEPs and Combined Authorities for initiatives that aim to help women, disabled people, and residents in poorer wards get into digital roles or further training and The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund (£400,000) to help older and disabled people acquire digital skills.
Six Local Digital Skills Partnerships (£900,000) that bring together cross-sector regional and national partners to upskill the current workforce.
The Grenfell Digital Skills programme (£300,000), which has been made available to the survivors and bereaved to learn digital skills.
Code4000’s Coding in Prisons programme (£100,000), supporting their expansion from HMP Humber and HMP Holme House, to other prison sites across the UK and funding support for graduates upon release in finding employment.
In addition to this DCMS has also funded research into digital skills.
Through the £1.9bn National Cyber Security Strategy, government has funded a range of initiatives to support the development of home-grown cyber security talent. This includes funding for the Cyber Discovery Schools Programme to inspire the next generation of cyber security talent and through the Cyber Skills Immediate Impact Fund to increase opportunities for individuals to retrain and upskill for a career in cyber security.
For national security reasons we are unable to detail individual funding by department or initiative.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to implement the Female Offender Strategy 2018 and support women’s transition back into the community through securing employment.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Female Offender Strategy (2018) set out our vision to see fewer women entering the justice system and reoffending; fewer women in custody, particularly on short custodial sentences, with more managed successfully in the community; and a custodial environment that enables rehabilitation. The Strategy contained an ambitious programme of work that will take several years to deliver.
Two years on from publication of the Strategy we are making good progress. Achievements to date include: publication of a new Women’s Policy Framework; roll-out of new training for staff working with women in custody and the community; improvements to the preparation of pre-sentence reports; publication and ongoing implementation of the recommendations in Lord Farmer’s review into family ties for female offenders; undertaken a review of police forces’ responses to our guidance on working with vulnerable women; piloting a new offender management model for women under supervision in the community; commissioning research to inform our policy on BAME female offenders; and a review of the operational policy on Pregnancy, Mother and Baby Units, and Mothers separated from children under the age of 2 in prison, which is due to report shortly.
In the last two years, we have invested £5.1 million of Strategy funding in 30 different women’s services across England and Wales, helping to sustain and enhance existing services, fill gaps in provision, and provide properties for new women’s centres.
The Strategy recognised that work can provide a foundation for a different kind of life for offenders and our funding has supported this approach. For example, the Good Loaf in Northampton received Strategy funding to extend its social enterprise bakery, offering more employment opportunities for female offenders and ex-offenders.
Most recently on 5 May 2020, we announced the investment of a further £2.5m in women’s community services in England and Wales in 2020/21 and that the first site of our residential women’s centre pilot will be in Wales.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which charities supporting women in receipt of (a) (i) direct or (ii) indirect funding from a Government department or (b) direct funding from local authorities.
Answered by John Whittingdale
On 8 April the Chancellor announced a £750 million funding package for charities.This includes £360 million of targeted funding by central government departments for charities providing vital services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Individual government departments have allocated this funding in line with their usual internal procedures. In addition, part of this package will include an open fund aimed at smaller charities and social enterprises working with vulnerable people affected by the crisis in England delivered through the National Lottery Community Fund.
My department and the National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF - our distribution partners for the Coronavirus Community Support Fund) have been - and continue to - engage extensively with diverse and underrepresented groups during the development of the response and are working with a number of organisations to improve the reach of the Coronavirus Community Support Fund. A diverse advisory panel has been set up to support the distribution process for the fund.
No DCMS funds have been allocated to local government for onward distribution. The department does not hold information on direct funding allocated by local government.
Announcements and the breakdown of government funding can be found on the gov.uk website here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/financial-support-for-voluntary-community-and-social-enterprise-vcse-organisations-to-respond-to-coronavirus-covid-19 . Details of the funds awarded by The National Lottery Community Fund and by DCMS will be published in due course. Individual departments will be responsible for publishing their own data.
Asked by: Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that (1) BAME, and (2) Muslim, women’s organisations are allocated enough funding to meet service demands.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government?continues to play a facilitative?role?in ensuring?Government?understands?the needs of BAME communities, including Muslim women, and the challenges they?may be currently?facing?in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is some evidence to suggest that BAME communities may be disproportionately affected by coronavirus.
There is a substantial package of targeted support for charities on the frontline of responding to COVID-19. The £750m DCMS-led funding package that the Government has announced will support organisations working with vulnerable groups impacted by COVID-19, including some in BAME communities.
Of this funding, £370m will support smaller, local charities working with vulnerable people. In England, this support will be provided through the National Lottery Community Fund. More details of the funding criteria and application process will be released in the coming days via the National Community Lottery Fund. £60m of the funding will be allocated through the Barnett formula so the devolved administrations are funded to provide similar support in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. DCMS always strives to engage with and represent all British people in its work, including those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
A further £360m will be distributed between Government departments to provide targeted support to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. This funding will not be allocated via an open bid but will be awarded in line with agreed departmental priorities, with the first £76m going towards supporting survivors of?domestic abuse, sexual violence, vulnerable children and their families and victims of modern slavery announced on 02 May.
As part of this, MHCLG launched a £10m ‘Domestic abuse safe accommodation: COVID-19 emergency support fund’ for charities providing safe accommodation for domestic abuse victims to bid directly into (attached) (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-abuse-safe-accommodation-covid-19-emergency-support-fund). This includes charities that provide specialist services such as those dedicated to supporting BAME victims. The deadline for charities to put forward an application is Thursday 21 May.
Departments, including MHCLG, continue to work at pace to ensure this funding reaches the areas of greatest need as quickly as possible, with the aim for our key partners to receive money in the coming weeks.
In addition, for 2020/2021, MHCLG has launched a new competitive grant scheme, with a budget of up to £2m for established community organisations and charities to carry out projects that promote shared values and integration, whilst tackling the harmful behaviours which lead to religiously and racially motivated hate crime. We welcome proposals from projects supporting the BAME community and Muslim women.
The Home Offices’ Building a Stronger Britain Together programme is also continuing to support BAME communities and Muslim women’s organisations within its network. These civil society organisations work within communities to tackle all forms of extremism; support victims of extremism and hate crime, as well as challenging the divisive, extremist narratives targeting minority communities. Preparations for 2020/21 delivery of the BSBT programme are currently underway. The programme uses robust grant standards to ensure our funding delivers the greatest impact for these organisations in tackling extremism issues.
Asked by: Baroness Mone (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following The Alison Rose review of female entrepreneurship, published on 8 March 2019, what progress they have made in increasing the number of female entrepreneurs.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In response to the Alison Rose Review, the government has set out an ambition to increase the number of female entrepreneurs by 50% by 2030, equivalent to nearly 600,000 additional female entrepreneurs.
In order to help realise this ambition, over the past year the Government has worked closely with industry to implement the eight recommendations of the Rose Review. The Rose Review Board, which is co-chaired by BEIS and HM Treasury Ministers, has been established to oversee progress, which includes: